Afterwards
by KatieH42
Summary: After beating KOBRA Terry's still got a breathing problem.


Terry looked down at the cherry blossoms floating on the water. The petals were little, delicate, the kind of thing he generally avoided touching – he was always afraid of breaking anything that fragile. It seemed stupid that he was afraid of breaking things. Batman broken things recreationally. It was his job to break things.

She'd helped him to be better at breaking things. She'd helped him be better at not getting broken.

He'd let her die.

It had surprised Terry a little that Bruce hadn't yelled at him. He hadn't even seemed that mad, when Max told Bruce what had happened. Terry had tried to explain everything that had happened up there, or at least all the things Bruce didn't hear through the radio, but he couldn't. Max had to do it.

Bruce hadn't even been angry. He hadn't said anything, just a gruff, "you all right?" and when Terry nodded, he turned away and hobbled to this place, to watch the flowers falling into the water. It seemed like the right place to remember her.

The headache he'd started to day with felt like an all out attempt from his brain to beat his skull until it cracked open and every single breath he took hurt. Max was shivering beside him, looking down at the flowers. He wondered what she was thinking about – she didn't really know Kairi, only that Kairi had died to safe them. He was halfway through that thought when the world lurched suddenly, really hard, throwing him off balance and forcing him to grab onto the railing just to keep from falling over.

"Terry?" he heard Max but her voice sounded very, very far away.

"Just dizzy," he answered, or he thought he did. It seemed possible that his mouth hadn't made the words. He needed to sit down, that was all. The world was getting blacker all around him and his hands and feet didn't feel right.

Sitting down was only mildly successful. He felt his back banging off the railing behind him but it didn't make him feel any less like throwing up everywhere.

"Terry, open your eyes," Bruce was saying to him. He didn't want to. He didn't like seeing the world angle and tilt. "Terry now," Bruce repeated, so he did. Why was his heart beating so fast? "What's wrong with you?" Bruce asked. He was close to Terry's face. After a minute Terry realized Bruce had his hand on his shoulder. Man, things must be worse then he thought.

"Just kinda faint," he muttered.

"That's probably from your concussion," Bruce said. "You'll be all right, you just need to rest. Anything else hurt?"

"My ribs," he said. He wanted to curl up around them and never move ever again. He wanted to close his eyes.

"Terry," Bruce said. "You're all right. Just keep your eyes open, keeping looking at me and take a deep breath." How did Bruce do that? Terry wondered. How did he make everything seem reasonable? He took a deep breath. It helped. A lot actually. "Good," Bruce said. "Now another one." He did. He felt better. His hands and feet were shaking but his vision was starting to clear. Max was kneeling on the bridge across from him, behind Bruce, looking very nervous.

"It's okay," he said weakly. Smiling wasn't making him feel very good, but he didn't feel like opening his mouth would make him puke anymore either, so he tried his best. "I'm fine."

"We need to get you home," Bruce said. "Max, help me up. Please." Terry watched as Max grabbed Bruce by the arm and slowly dragged him to his feet as he leaned heavily on his cane. "Thank you," he said gruffly. "Now help Terry up."

Her hands weren't particularly gentle.. Terry groaned as she dragged him up and his ribs thoughtfully sent stabbing pain through his chest. "Gentle," Bruce growled at her. Terry managed to grin.

"What?" Max asked as she kind of half leaned him against the railing. Bruce was on his other side and had a hand on his arm.

"I don't usually hear the old man use that tone with anyone but me," he said, smiling painfully as he curled up as best he could around his ribs.

"Come on," Bruce said, keeping one hand on Terry's arm as he started to walk across the bridge . Max put her hand around Terry's waist and with one on each side Terry slowly hobbled towards Bruce's car.

"The keys are here," Terry muttered, patting his pockets until he heard them jingle, then he fished them out. He kind of lurched towards the driver's side door but Bruce caught his arm and pulled him back. His other hand grabbed the keys away from Terry.

"Not today," he said. "Get in the back." Terry wasn't sure how this was going to go, but his head hurt and his chest ached and Bruce used his no nonsense voice so he did as he was told and crawled into the back seat. He crawled all the way to the other side of the car so he could lean up against the door. He wasn't dizzy any more but he wasn't sure if he was allowed to close his eyes or not, so he stared at his knees and listened. "Max do you drive?" he asked.

"I've got my learners permit!" she said cheerfully. Terry heard keys jingle.

"That's not what I asked," Bruce growled.

"I can totally do this," Max insisted. Bruce exhaled very loudly and a moment later he was in the car next to Terry. The door shut, then the door in front opened and Max got in. She slammed the door. The noise hurt his head.

"Max," Bruce growled as the car lurched forward and then stalled.

"I got it, I got it," she said as the car hummed back to life and start to roll away from the curb. Bruce sighed again and Terry almost managed to a smile down at his knees. He closed his eyes and let his head drop further down onto his chest.

"So, hospital?" Max asked as she slammed on the breaks at the first red light they came from. Bruce put his hand across Terry's chest to stop him from hitting the back of Max's seat. It didn't feel good, but it could have hurt a lot more.

"He doesn't need a hospital," Bruce said gruffly. "He just needs to rest. We'll take him back to Wayne Manor."

"If he just needs rest why not take him home?" Max suggested, while stamping on the gas way too fast and making everything in the car, except Bruce, lurch backward.

"He needs to rest somewhere were I can keep an eye on him," Bruce corrected himself.

"He's got broken ribs and a concussion, what on earth do you," and then she paused. "Oh," she said. "Right."

Terry smiled.


End file.
